Abstract

Leibniz’s modal philosophy, 1675-1676, displays a complex relationship to Spinoza. Commentators have tried to determine the extent to which these drafts foreshadow Leibniz’s later opposition to the necessitarianism with which Spinoza is reproached. The status of non-realized possibles is central to this debate. I here defend the thesis of a strong kind of necessitarianism that Leibniz attempted to make compatible with divine personality. Other possibilities are taken into account by Leibniz only because he wanted to guarantee that the best be necessarily chosen, a choice without options conceivable from God’s action on Himself.